My Historical Facts and Opinions

May 18, 2013

Positives of Apathy

If you know me you are well aware that I can often be critical, some would say a complainer. In general, I think I have a positive outlook on life, but when I say that my wife, Marcia, will roll her eyes and come up with a derisive laugh. There are plenty of things wrong to complain about, and when my friend Ron, our friend in Roanoke who's my age, get together on our balcony with a beer and some Evan Williams, we have the best time discussing all of them. Of course we usually have some aches and pains to share, but we get around to everything eventually: the greed of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, what's wrong with politicians and Washington, the weather, packaging we seniors can't open, driving with all of those bike lanes on the street, how they cut the grass in our complex and even why do they need to repaint the numbers and stripes on our parking places. Oh, I forgot my major one, daylight savings time. Ron and I have a marvelous time.

I am also a cautioner. "We had better leave a little early because you never know how traffic is going to be." "Your coffee cup is sitting over the edge of that coaster." "This is too much food, I should have ordered something smaller." "We should eat more fruit," which gets interpreted as "you should eat more fruit." "I don't think we have time to watch that movie, I drive for Red Cross tomorrow." I once was even the subject of an object lesson included in a sermon by our friend, Dean. He said that if the weather was especially nice, I would caution, "We will have to pay for this later."

I know much of this comes from my Baptist upbringing, and my mother was a cautious person. But that is another fault of mine, I can always find an external cause for my misbehavior.

So now I have decided that in order to have a more positive outlook on life, I will be more apathetic. After all, no one listens to us old farts anyway. If we complain about the violence in the movies, on TV and in computer games, the younger generation just ignores us. We just have a problem accepting progress. Why should kids have to learn how to write cursive, all they will need in life is knowledge of cell phones and computers. So for my own well-being and the peace of mind of those around me, I try to ignore the evening news and its commercials. The world's problems now have been passed to a new generation. I have my opinions and standards, but I won't be sharing them on Facebook. There are plenty of others to do that. I will pay my taxes and vote, I will try to eat the right foods so I don't get too fat, I will exercise to try to remain healthy as long as I can, but I will try to take a "don't care" attitude about things I can't control. Many will critize my apathy, but "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." I'm worried more about my bloodpressure.